


The Genesis of Rhythm

by Wynn



Series: Fooled Around and Fell in Love [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, Bucky is the Smirking Commando, Darcy perplexes him with pop culture, F/M, More flirting and feels than crack fic, lots of banter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4342586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>That wasn’t a bird in the bush, Darcy knew that much.</em> </p><p>Two months after Darcy rescued Bucky from Hydra and won the Deluxe Edition of all of Cap's weirdo war films, Darcy crosses paths with him again, this time as he hides outside the Science Compound of Avengers HQ. His purpose there? A thank-you dinner that may or may not be a date. </p><p>Sequel to "Come With Me Now"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bird in the Bush

**Author's Note:**

> Was gonna wait to post this, but the _Ant-Man_ end credits scene made me all sad and in need of happy Bucky. Perhaps others need him too. So the fic.
> 
> I copy and paste all the prompts I receive into a Word doc and go through them to see what might inspire some fic. This is an old one. So old that I’m not sure who prompted me with this anymore, but it inspired the muse so here’s the prompt: “bucky/darcy - bucky surveilling steve and the avengers (for any reason, keep them safe, learn more about them, etc), darcy waits until jane's left the lab then confronting bucky about his creepy lurking.” 
> 
> Title is a lyric from Fiona Apple’s song “Hot Knife,” which was listened to on repeat during the crafting and writing of this story. I play fast and loose with MCU canon, adding in the bits from AoU that I liked and ignoring the rest. I also add a bit of Wanda’s comic hex/chaos powers to her MCU ones.

he excites me  
must be like the genesis of rhythm  
i get feisty  
whenever i'm with him.  
\- fiona apple- hot knife

 

That wasn’t a bird in the bush, Darcy knew that much. 

She sat in the sun porch ringing the science complex of the new Avengers facility, a chicken salad sandwich in hand and her iPod on and currently blasting some MØ. She looked again into the distance, at the woods surrounding the compound. The same dark shadow lurked in the same bush as it had for the past three hours, ever since Darcy had come tearing through the porch that morning searching for a note Jane had lost the night before. The note, naturally, had been under a coffee mug on Jane’s desk, but Darcy didn’t curse the wasted effort as she doubted she would have otherwise noticed the lurker.

She took a bite of her sandwich then and contemplated whether to inform Steve or Natasha or any of the other Avengers about the unexpected arrival. The likelihood of it being a real threat to the team seemed slim. What self-respecting archenemy to the Avengers would be as obvious in their lurking as this guy? Absolutely none. More likely, it was a paparazzo or a fan that traversed the fence and the surrounding woods to get a glimpse of one or more of the team. Both had occurred before. Darcy had videos on her phone from the last time a paparazzo had tried to spy on the team; the man had been cornered by Vision and Natasha, Vision lecturing the man on the importance of privacy and decency for three hours as Natasha sharpened her knives behind him. If it was one of them, a fan or a paparazzo, it would be better for Darcy to deal with the situation, to namedrop the high-priced lawyer that Pepper Potts kept on retainer for them to use or to nudge the person away from the compound with a threatened phone call to the authorities.

But if it wasn’t one of them, if it was in fact, a real threat to the team lurking out in the woods, then Darcy going out there by herself without informing anyone else of his presence would likely result in her kidnapping or death. And Darcy didn’t want either of those to occur. Especially the kidnapping. She was still on thin ice with Steve for the stunt she pulled two months ago, driving against Cap’s orders into the latest tiny town in her and Jane’s astronomical phenomenon tour to rescue Bucky from Hydra clutches. But, again, what kind of formidable enemy lurked the way this one lurked? None, so she dismissed the actual threat option for a paparazzo or a fan.

Or maybe it was a spy, but a corporate spy. Or a science spy. Jane had gained significant fame after the Portalpalooza in London. It had been one of the reasons that she, Darcy, and Erik had made their way to Avengers HQ, a rival scientist nearly stealing Jane’s research from their hotel room in Oslo four months before. A science spy would explain the lurker’s fixation outside the science complex as well as the actual awful spying too. And a science spy Darcy could handle. All she needed was some darkness and her tazer, and she’d be all set.

Six hours later, darkness arrived. Darcy pushed Jane out the door to eat real food with Wanda and Rhodey, checking, as she did, the lurker in the bush. From what her non-super-vision could tell, he still remained, so she returned to the lab, conveniently forgetting to lock the door, and dithered, lingering before the window and trying her best to look like a vulnerable intern ripe for kidnapping. Aside from the dim light inside the lab, only moonlight and starlight illuminated this portion of the grounds, the first of the many demands that Jane had made before she consented to the move. Yet in the darkness, Darcy still spied one shadow slide free from the rest and begin to make its way toward the lab. As soon as it did, her imagination took over, with visions of decapitations and exsanguinations dancing through her head. She regretted not informing the others about the lurker or at least not leaving a note somewhere conspicuous for Jane to find the following morning informing her to come fetch Darcy’s headless and bloodless body from the closest available ditch. 

Grabbing her bag, Darcy walked out of view of the window, removed her glasses in case of fisticuffs, crouched under the table by the filing cabinet, and then retrieved her tazer. She wished now that she had taken Natasha and Sam up on their offer to train her with a firearm, but she’d just bought a new box of Creamsicles for her epic marathon of 80s classics and couldn’t get away. The gun laid in a box in her bag, but Darcy left it there. She was more likely to shoot herself than the scum-sucking shadow lurker, and she couldn’t do that. She’d lose whatever civilian cred she’d managed to accumulate during her time with Jane and Thor and be forced into a protective plastic bubble by Wanda.

The doorknob twisted. Darcy breathed in and rested her thumb on the panic button she hoped she didn’t have to press. She heard the door open, heard the door close, heard no footsteps, but saw legs a second later, the legs in jeans and boots and belonging to a man. Darcy allowed them to pass her by before she slid as quietly as she could out from under the table to stand.

“Freeze, asshole.”

“Already done that. Didn’t like it so much, so I think I’ll pass.”

Darcy stilled at the voice. “Bucky?”

The man turned then and it definitely was Bucky, though he wore civvies now, a white tee and a leather jacket along with his jeans and boots, rather than his combat uniform from before. The long hair and scruff were the same, and she thanked both Vision and Thor that she wore actual grown-up clothes today, nice jeans and a maroon sweater, instead of the ratty ‘Hang In There’ cat shirt and leggings she slept in the night before.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked as she lowered her tazer.

Bucky shrugged. “I’m talking to you.”

Darcy gave him a look. “That’s not what I meant. You’re supposed to be in Russia somewhere kicking Hydra butt.”

“I was. Now I’m not.”

She gave him another look for the vague response. “Obviously. Why didn’t you call me, let me know you were coming?”

He grimaced then, and she tried not to find it adorable. “I couldn’t. I lost your number.”

“Oh.”

“Well, not lost,” he amended. “I blew it up.”

Darcy’s brows rose. “You blew up my phone number?”

“Not deliberately. I blew up my car, but your number was inside it, so I lost it in the flames.” He paused then added, “It was a strategic necessity.”

Her brows rose higher.

“It was,” he muttered, oddly and endearingly defensive.

Darcy resisted the urge to smile. “I’m sure it was. And I’m not denying the need. Or condemning the pyrotechnics. Believe me. I just didn’t think it was possible to make blowing up a car sound that boring.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at her for that. Darcy sent him a sunny smile, one that grew as he shook his head and let loose a soft sigh.

“Come on,” she said, exchanging her tazer for her glasses. “You missed me. You know you did. After all the fun we had last time.”

He barked out a short laugh. “If by fun, you mean the fear that the gorgeous dame I kidnapped was going to kill me with her crazy driving, then yes. We had fun.”

Darcy’s smile turned dopey at the unexpected compliment. She tried to bite it back, to cross her arms over her chest in a desperate bid to remain cool. “Technically, I kidnapped you.”

Bucky cocked a brow then, and any question that the former Winter Soldier was flirting with her vanished at the look in his eyes. “That’s not what you told Steve.”

“Are we really going to call each other on our lies to Appleseed? Because I distinctly recall a certain someone claiming that I was the only car available for a getaway when there were, in fact, five others in clear view.”

He made a noncommittal noise, but she saw the beginnings of a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Speaking of, how’s the box set?”

“Glorious. It’s the cornerstone of team bonding nights, much to Cap’s chagrin.”

That earned her a smirk. “I bet.”

“He’s trying to claim that he doesn’t remember the USO routine, which we know is a big fat lie, because, hello, eidetic memory. We’re working on wearing him down for a recreation.”

“Take him on a drive. He’ll be begging for anything by the end of that.”

Now her eyes narrowed. His smirk transformed into a broad grin in response. Darcy faltered for a second at the sight of it, at the reality of this moment, Bucky Barnes standing before her instead of some awkwardly evil science spy, then she rallied her faculties and walked forward to poke him in the chest. “Hey! This crazy lady and her crazy driving saved your scowling butt, so a little gratitude, okay?”

Rather than elicit another witty rejoinder, her comment clammed Bucky up. The smile slid off of his face and he looked away, over to the side, first to her laptop and then to the floor. Darcy lowered her hand and tried not to frown, but she couldn’t help it, the turn in the conversation too quick for her to bear.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You want to eat?”

Darcy blinked at the abrupt question. “What?”

Bucky grimaced again. He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes still evading hers. “I mean, go get something to eat. Do you want to?”

The clarification failed to clarify. “Are you… asking me out?”

Bucky shrugged. He lowered his hand, looked anywhere around the room but at her. “You were right. You risked your neck coming to get me. I never said thank you. Not properly anyway.”

Her frown deepened. “So you’re not asking me out?”

Bucky’s jaw tightened and his mouth compressed to a thin line. Darcy felt her heart clench at his obvious frustration, less at her, she surmised, than at himself. She couldn’t imagine that he had a whole lot of practice asking people out since gaining his freedom from Hydra. She leaned to the side and tried to catch his eye. “I’m saying yes either way. I just want to know if I should brush my hair and put on some lipstick.”

Bucky finally looked at her. He said nothing, he just regarded her, the frustration fading from his face as the seconds slid by and his expression darkened by an altogether different intensity, one that stilled the breath in her chest and made her keenly aware of just how exactly close they were standing, of the solid wall of muscle that hit her finger when she poked him in the chest. Prior to this moment, Darcy would have sworn that butterflies didn’t actually flutter inside you when you locked eyes with someone, no matter how poetically Jane waxed about Thor when drunk, but she felt them now and more when she parted her lips in a futile effort to breathe and his gaze dipped down to them and held.

“So that’s a yes to the lipstick?”

Bucky lifted his eyes to hers, and he nodded.

“Okay. Good. I’m gonna go do that. Now. Over there.” She pointed blindly at the bathroom to their left as she eased back. “You, uh, you just hang tight here, and I’ll be, you know, back.” 

Darcy groped for her bag then, her eyes still on Bucky, nearly knocking her tazer to the floor in the process. Bucky extended his arm, the movement slow and smooth, as slow and as smooth as the smile that curved his lips. A second later, he held her bag out to her. With a modicum more grace, she latched onto the strap and turned, making her way slowly and without further incident to the bathroom to hyperventilate and lust for the next five minutes.

*


	2. Strategic Necessities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Darcy quotes is “Nasty” by Janet Jackson (Bucky, of course, is not a nasty boy). Also, if you didn’t know, the baseball team the Los Angeles Dodgers were originally the Brooklyn Dodgers. Also, part two, in this story Pietro and Jarvis are alive. See prior chapter, re: playing fast and loose with post-AoU MCU canon. I also add a bit of Wanda’s comic hex/chaos powers to her MCU ones.
> 
> Part three is almost finished and should be posted next Monday or Tuesday. I haven't written part four yet, but hope to have it done in time to post a week or so after that. Thank you to everyone who left a comment or kudos on the prior chapter! I hope you enjoy the next installment of Bucky and Darcy flirting. :D

Part Two: Strategic Necessities

 

“So I’m assuming I’m driving,” she said four and a half minutes later, her hair brushed and some lipstick on, cooler and calmer and almost collected. She’d also texted Jane about going out that evening in case Jane caught any late night science cravings and went searching for Darcy, though Darcy had failed to mention with whom she was going out and about. Giving Bucky her phone number had earned Darcy a well meaning but entirely undesired lecture from Jane, and Darcy wished to avoid another harangue, at least until after the date. “Strategic necessities and all,” she added as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

Bucky nodded.

“Okay. But you can’t blow up my car, no matter the necessities.”

Bucky fell into step beside her, and they made their way to the door. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. Because even though Tony Stark is a gazillionaire who’s blown up entire city blocks before, he’s all, ‘You destroy _this_ car, Lewis, and you take the bus home.’” She shook her head at the hypocrisy and reached for the doorknob. 

Bucky waited for her to open the door and step through before he asked, “Why would he say that?”

Darcy scrunched up her face at the question, though she figured if anyone would understand it was Mr. Strategic Necessities. “This isn’t my first Starkmobile. The others kind of, sort of, met tragic ends.”

Bucky followed her out the door. “How many others?”

“I don’t know. Like six.”

“ _Six_?”

Darcy heaved out a sigh as she keyed in the lock code for the door. “Yes. Six.” She directed them down the sidewalk surrounding the science compound and began her explanation. “One got smashed by an evil elf in London. Two were inconveniently placed between Thor and his Mew-Mew and thus were skewered, which should _not_ have been blamed on me but totally were. Hydra drove another one into a lake the first time they kidnapped me. I kind of drove another one into a tree, but it wasn’t my fault! A huge moose deer just leaped out of nowhere in front of my car, and I had to swerve.” 

“And the last?”

Darcy scrunched up her face again. “I’m not sure. It kind of disappeared.” 

Bucky frowned at that. “How could it ‘kind of’ disappear?”

“It can when you’re giving driving lessons to the Scarlet Witch and her idiot brother. Everything was going fine, and then they just start _screaming_ at each other, in Russian I might add, and then we’re not even in the car anymore but somehow back here at HQ. Nobody’s seen the car since. Wanda swears that she doesn’t know where it is,” Darcy continued as they reached the end of the building, “but at least three people think that she does and that she’s just waiting for Pietro to go outside again before she brings it back from wherever it is so she can drop it on his head.” Darcy shakes her head slowly at that. “Poor guy hasn’t been outside in almost three weeks.”

They continued on the path past the science building into the rest of the compound. Darcy waited for Bucky to say something in response to her explanation, but he didn’t. The silence stretched on for so long that Darcy turned to look at him, only to find that he’d stopped walking and stood a few feet behind on the path. He stared at her, his mouth slightly open, and Darcy couldn’t tell by his expression if he was alarmed or impressed by her story. 

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and shot for a smile. “Still want to go out with me?”

Though she hadn’t meant for it to, the question sounded like a challenge, like a line being drawn in the sand. Darcy cursed herself for letting past history dictate present anxiety. She racked her brain for another quip to paper over the unintended exposure, but she couldn’t conjure something fast enough, Bucky striding forward before she could. The butterflies resurged within her at the look in his eyes, both determined and intent, no amusement to brighten the sobriety or diminish the sincerity. 

“You might have a questionable record with driving,” he said as he stopped before her, “but I’ve got a questionable record with _everything_ , so it’s gonna take a lot more than that to scare me off.” Bucky held her gaze a moment only to look away as he shook his head. “Hell, I’m the one who should be asking you that question.”

He didn’t ask, not then at least, because she realized now that he already had, maybe not out loud to her, but still asking, Bucky lingering in the bushes all day rather than coming straight to the lab for a reason. Maybe he’d just wanted to talk to her when she was alone but maybe not. Darcy abstained from asking though, reaching forward to clasp his left hand instead.

“Let’s for the record say that you did and that I, in acceptance of our shared questionability, once again said yes. How does that sound?”

Bucky peered down at their linked hands. Darcy was just about to ask whether this was okay or if she shouldn’t touch his metal arm when he smiled, a faint hint of a one that made her want to stuff him full of chocolate and kiss him, touch him with soft hands until he melted, boneless, into the floor. All she did though was smile at him and say, “I completely agree.”

They started back down the path again, silent now, but companionably so. Bucky’s palm warmed to her touch. His hand felt solid in hers, heavier than a flesh hand, but gentle in its grip upon her. He tensed a bit as the living quarters popped into view, a number of the windows lit and lively in the night, but he relaxed again as she directed them in a loop around the building to the garage on the other side. As they approached the door, Darcy heard his stomach growl, and she glanced at him, smiling. 

“Hungry?”

Bucky nodded. “Haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“What?!” She stopped so suddenly she jerked on his hand. 

Bucky glanced back at her and shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Darcy blinked at him, unable to process the admission. Then she released his hand and began to dig through her bag for the chocolate bars she always kept there. She learned her lesson the hard way about leaving them in the communal kitchen, walking in one afternoon to find Pietro atop a mound of empty Kit-Kat wrappers, a bit of chocolate still smeared on his face from the feast.

“You don’t—”

“Aha!” She whipped out one Snickers bar and shoved it towards him. “Here. Eat this.”

He didn’t. He frowned at the bar instead, making no move to take it from her hand.

Darcy wavered in her offer. “Do you not like chocolate? Because I have some granola bars in the lab if you—”

Bucky shook his head. “No. I do. Or I did. I just…” He floundered then, eyeing the bar. A few seconds of silence passed before he either found what he wanted to say or gave up, settling on, “I haven’t had one of those in seventy years.” 

Darcy reached for his hand again, but this time to place the Snickers bar on his palm. “It’s about time then, don’t you think?”

Bucky stared at the bar a moment longer before glancing up at her. Darcy smiled when he did, a bright one that made him shake his head again, but this time with another nascent smile upon his face. “I guess so.” 

He ripped open the package and took a small bite. The orgasmic sound he made a second later made Darcy laugh.

“I know, right? I swear my left boob is all chocolate. And beer.”

Bucky froze, the bar halfway to his mouth. Darcy felt herself start to flush as he slowly cocked a brow at her. She shrugged, but her effort to brush aside the mortification of blabbing about her boobs twice in as many meetings completely and utterly failing.

“I’m sorry. I don’t normally reference my boobs so often in front of strange men.”

Bucky frowned at her again. “You think I’m strange?”

“Strange as in stranger. Not as in personality.”

His frown deepened. “You know who I am.”

“Technically,” she said, arching at him brow as she sidled past for the door. “You never actually introduced yourself.”

“And when was I supposed to do that? Before or after Hydra started shooting at us?”

Darcy glanced over her shoulder, happy to see Bucky amused rather than offended. “Either. I’m flexible.”

He said nothing to that, he just lifted the bar and took another bite, but his eyes were bright as he looked at her, encouraging the butterflies to take flight once more. Turning back around, Darcy keyed in her code and opened the garage door. The lights inside flickered on, revealing the epic collection of personal and professional vehicles, a mix of flashy sports cars and sedate sedans with a few motorcycles thrown in for good measure. Behind her, Bucky crumpled the wrapper. She saw him toss it in the nearby trashcan before shoving the rest of the Snickers bar into his mouth. Trying not to smile, Darcy kicked the door closed before pointing to one of the sedans in the far corner. 

They started across the garage, quiet again as Bucky swallowed the candy bar. She saw his gaze linger on the motorcycle closest to the door, but he made no comment and neither did Darcy, the star-spangled shield propped on the headlight signifier enough. Instead, as they passed it by, she said, “So no name?”

“I thought I already had one.” He glanced at her, mischief in his eyes as he clarified. “Unless you gave Dodger to Steve.”

Darcy felt herself flush at the referenced nickname. She’d forgotten that she used it in front of him during their last encounter, but she had when she called Thor, trying to avoid real names in case of eavesdropping. The desire to dive beneath Rhodey’s SUV and never come back out again rose within her, held back only by the lack of any discernable anger on his face.

“I didn’t,” she said, her face still hot. “But I didn’t want to presume you were a nickname sort of guy. Even if it is a good one.”

Bucky lifted his chin, a cocky little tilt that had her pulse pounding. “You think so?”

“Yes. It’s both historically and presently relevant given your Brooklyn boy Dodgers love and your unpredictable tour of Hydra ass kicking. However, that doesn’t mean I have to use it. It’s up to you.”

“I don’t mind. But for the sake of flexibility, you can call me Bucky too. Or James,” he added as they made their way toward her car, “if you prefer that instead.”

“Oooh. Options. How generous of you.”

He laughed at that, a soft one that sent a little thrill down her spine. “So where’re are mine? All you gave me is Darcy. Fair’s fair.”

They stopped before her car, a dark blue one rather than the puke green Tony threatened her with after the Great Disappearance. Bucky waited for her response, his chin still tilted a bit into the air and his bottom lip caught softly between his teeth. He looked exactly as he did in the more risqué dreams Darcy had had of late, and she had to pull in a cool steadying breath before responding.

“I suppose it is. The popular options aside from Darcy are Lewis, which, by the by, _is_ my last name, or there’s Ms. Lewis, but that’s only if you’re nasty,” she added with a smile.

His eyes widened and he stared at her in absolute silence for four seconds until he said, in a voice slightly strained, “What?”

“Janet. Jackson. You know, the pop singer. ‘My name’s not ‘Baby.’ It’s Janet. Ms. Jackson, if you’re nasty.’” Darcy smiled at him again, but it deflated at his continued gaping. “We’re gonna have to brush you up on pop culture, dude, or you’re gonna miss, like, sixty-eight percent of what I say.”

Bucky resumed functioning. “Sixty-eight percent? That’s precise.”

Darcy shrugged. “I work for an astrophysicist. She makes me do math, so precision has become my middle name.”

“What was it before?”

“May, and if you even think of unleashing a ‘Darcy May’ upon me, you’ll be known as ‘Jimmy Buck Barnes’ for the rest of eternity.”

Bucky laughed again. His face transformed as he did, his expression no longer stern but buoyant. Darcy stared a bit too long, but she couldn’t help it. He had a face worth gazing upon. She willed herself to turn though, to dig into her bag for her keys, the rest of the night before her to stare. 

Opening the driver’s door, Darcy climbed inside. Bucky followed a few seconds later, gazing at the dashboard as he did. He had nearly shot the dashboard in her previous car, so startled had he been by Jarvis. Darcy understood. The first time she stepped into an elevator at Stark Tower and Jarvis spoke to her she had nearly had a heart attack. Tony, of course, had used her shriek as his ring tone until Thor threatened to elicit one from Tony that he could replace it with instead.

“You’re not going to shoot Jarvis, are you?” she said as she started her car. “He’s nice, I swear, even if he is a Stark.”

Bucky didn’t shoot, but he did tense a bit when Jarvis spoke. “Thank you, Ms. Lewis. And good evening, Sergeant Barnes. It is a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance.”

The polite greeting eased the tension enough for a curt nod.

Suppressing her smile, Darcy reached for and pressed the button for the garage door. “He kind of twitched, J, which I suppose is hello.”

“I understand his apprehension, Ms. Lewis, having accompanied you on every drive.”

“Hey! I vouched for you. Be nice to me.”

“Apologies, Ms. Lewis. I wish both you and Sergeant Barnes a pleasant ride without any parallel dimensions, alien encounters, bullet holes, lakes, moose, magical weapons, or trees.” 

Darcy considered banging her head against the steering wheel or yanking her tazer out of her bag to taze the dashboard, but she did neither. She merely closed her eyes and sighed.

Beside her, Bucky snorted. “Your car always sass you like this?”

Darcy opened her eyes to glare at the dashboard. “Unfortunately. He is a Stark.”

“Glad I didn’t shoot it then.”

Darcy turned her glare toward him, but her reproach wavered when their eyes met, when Bucky turned toward her not a glare but a grin, a little saucy one that made her breath hitch and a flicker of desire ignite in her gut. She wanted to clamber over the gearshift and into his lap, taste his lips for the chocolate she knew still lingered there and feel again the hard planes of his chest. Instead, sanity reigned and she shifted the car into drive.

“Any ideas about where to go?”

Bucky shook his head. He bit his bottom lip again, let his gaze flicker down to her mouth. 

“Well, there’s a bar. In town,” she said, spots within her beginning to tingle, spots she decidedly did not want to tingle on the permanent surround sound surveillance that oversaw the garage. “With food. And alcohol. Which, you know, sounds _really_ nice right about now.”

Bucky grinned at her again, nice and slow, making the tingles tingle. “Yes. It does.”

Nodding, not trusting herself to speak anything, much less coherent words, Darcy faced forward and pulled in a sensible breath before peeling out of the garage.

*


	3. Food of the Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date, part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy’s quip about sheep and goats is a reference to the Kinsey scale, to the lack of just two distinct groups of sexual attraction (homosexual and heterosexual) in the world. Also, no offense is intended with the Wheel of Fortune quip; my boring butt is at home watching Jeopardy while eating dinner most nights. Hopefully, you get the Scully reference. The ‘best start believing in space…” bit is a riff off of ‘You best start believing in ghost stories, Ms. Turner’ from Pirates of the Caribbean while ‘treat yo self’ is, of course, from Parks and Recreation. And there’s more stuff at the end about the mythology stuff.
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely feedback on the last chapter! This one's got more feels in it than the previous few. I am incapable of withstanding the feels. Action picks up in the next one, which hopefully should be done in a couple of weeks. *crosses fingers*

Part Three: Food of the Gods

 

Late seventies rock-and-roll blasted from the jukebox in the corner of the bar. There were more people than Darcy anticipated for a Tuesday evening, but what else were they supposed to do in this Podunk town after six o’clock at night? Stay at home to watch _Wheel of Fortune_ or go to the local watering hole and get watered. Someday, Darcy would live in a city again, a proper city and not a miniscule speck in the middle of the desert or the northern wilds of New York, but for now, she blessed small-town living for all it was worth, for providing her and Bucky with a quiet corner in which to sit and thus, hopefully, for Bucky to relax.

He sat with his back to the wall, scanning the fellow patrons, the entrances and exits, maybe even what could and could not be used as a weapon in case of emergency. They had already ordered drinks and food, the beer that now sat before them along with cheeseburgers and fries. Bucky had followed her culinary lead, down to the extra helping of pickles on the side, saying as little as possible to the waitress taking their order. He said little to her as well, clamming up when they entered the bar. Lifting her glass, Darcy took a drink of her beer. She studied Bucky as she did, debating what to say to draw him back out of his shell. Normally, she’d be knee deep into the question and answer portion of the date, inquiring about favorite movies, favorite books, favorite food, about whether the person sitting across from her preferred cats or dogs. But she didn’t know if any of those applied to Bucky. Sure, he ate, and he likely watched a movie or two back in the day, but that was back in the day and they were here in the now. His behavior toward food that evening indicated little interest beyond basic sustenance, and she—

“You figure it out yet?”

Darcy started, unaware that he was aware of her staring. “What?”

Bucky eyed the three middle-aged truckers who sat at the bar a moment longer before sliding his gaze back to her. “Whatever you’re turning over in your head about me. You figure it out yet?”

Darcy opened her mouth to deny that she was doing any such thing only to stop and slump back in her seat. “No.”

Some of the humor returned to his face. “You can ask, you know. I vaguely remember that that’s what happens on these things.” 

“It is,” she said as he reached for his drink. “And that’s the thing. What I’m trying to figure out, I mean. Usually the get to know you portion of the evening is all, ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ but—”

Bucky gave a slow nod. “But I haven’t watched a movie in seventy years.”

“Exactly.” 

“You could ask about something else.” 

“I thought about that,” Darcy said as she straightened in her seat and took another sip of her beer. “But I didn’t know how comfortable you’d be with a stroll down memory lane _or_ with shooting the breeze about your current events either. Like, ‘how many affinities _do_ you feel with Hercules now, and what might they be?’” 

Bucky tilted his head at the last. “What?”

“Hercules. You know, the guy who killed the Hydra.”

He stilled then, and as he did, whatever certainty Darcy had in her conversational prowess completely vanished. She tapped her thumb against her glass then licked her lips, for what to do now. She figured that two options lay before her: either succumbing to her conversational failure and remaining silent until the food arrived or barreling forward in likely hysterical babbling in an effort to explain what she had originally meant.

She, of course, went with option two, daring to make it worse.

“It’s not so farfetched,” she began. “You and Hercules. Or you as Hercules. Because— Okay, yes, the Disney version is totally Appleseed, but the real dude? Or the myth dude? Not so much. I mean, Hercules didn’t have his memory erased, but he was driven insane by the gods and made to do a shit ton of bad things that he regretted when he was himself again. And he spent, like, the next decade atoning, doing all sorts of epic things, like killing the Hydra, to try to make up for what he didn’t even want to do in the first place. And,” she continued, clutching desperately at her glass, Bucky still frozen and staring at her, “he was, allegedly, not that I’ve, you know, studied it or anything, a huge stud. For the ladies and the men folk. Not that you have. Or maybe you have. With the men folk, I mean. I don’t know. It’s none of my business. Well, I guess half of it is. Otherwise why would you be here with me? But the other half? The, uh, men folk half? Totally not my business. Not that it’s bad if you have. Or haven’t. Or have. Because who hasn’t, right? The world’s not just sheep and goats. There’re cows and geese and staplers too.” 

Darcy laughed then, or she tried to. Mostly she just sounded on the edge of hysteria. Snatching up her glass, she chugged half her beer, wondering how Bucky would react if she dove beneath the table and army crawled all the way back to HQ. She didn’t have to test as, a second later, his paralysis cracked and he lifted a hand to his mouth, barely concealing the smile that formed upon his face.

“A huge stud, huh?”

Of course that would be what he focused on. “Shut up,” she said, laughing as she flushed. “You know what I mean.”

Bucky lowered his hand back down to the table. The spark that had burned in him back at HQ returned, and Darcy felt the call, she felt her body respond as his smile turned flirtatious. “No, no. This I got to hear. Is that one of the affinities? Me being a huge stud?”

She shook her head, saying nothing in response, but Bucky took her silence for the confirmation that it was. He leaned forward then, his eyes soft, the smile still tugging at his mouth. His gaze floated across her face, from her eyes to her lips and back again, and everything within Darcy fizzled and popped, like raindrops on rooftops, like sparklers and the dark night sky on a sultry summer night.

“So if I’m Hercules,” he asked, tilting his head at her, “who are you?”

Darcy shrugged. “I don’t you. I did you, so you tell me.” She leaned forward as well, bringing her arms to the table, bringing herself closer to him. “Fair’s fair, you know.” 

“It is.” 

Bucky lapsed into silence then, studying her as the jukebox shifted from old rock and roll to a modern country song that Darcy didn’t know. His expression grew serious as he regarded her, and Darcy found herself starting to breathe a bit faster at the measured stare, at the feeling of understanding gleaned by him in just a look. His gaze lingered on her a few seconds more and then, softly, he answered.

“Persephone.”

Darcy’s eyes widened at the declaration. “Wow.”

Bucky tensed at her response.

“It’s not bad,” she said quickly. “I’m not offended. At all. I just…” She shook her head then, too amazed to do anything more. “That was not who I had in mind at all.”

“Who did you have?”

Darcy shrugged again. “I don’t know. Some woodland nymph. Or a temple lackey. You know, like someone who lit the incense or fetched olives for the gods or something.” She paused then, hesitating a second before she asked, “Why her? Why’d you choose her?”

Bucky matched her shrug. “You’re young, like she was. Full of life too.” His attention drifted at that, turning inward as he smiled.

“What?”

“The way you danced when Steve said he’d give you that damned box set. I…” Bucky shook his head, stopping instead to take a long pull from his beer.

“What?” she asked, her voice softer.

He remained silent a moment longer, picking at the label on his bottle. Then, abruptly, he said, still looking at the bottle, “I think that was the first time I smiled in seventy years.”

Her brain blanked at the revelation, completely whiting out anything to say in return. Before she could scrounge for a response, though, Bucky spoke again, not quite as manic as Darcy had been in her attempt to hastily explain.

“She was a queen, too, you know. Persephone. Had a spine of steel to rule in the underworld.”

This made Darcy laugh. “I think my spine is more squash than steel.”

Bucky finally looked at her again. He leaned back in his chair, amusement returning to his gaze. “Yeah, the famous squash spine that made you ignore a direct order from Steve so that you could come and get me.” 

“That wasn’t bravery, dude. That was instinct. That was a lifetime of ignoring two older brothers who love nothing better than to tell me what to do.”

“Still, you knew Hydra was in the area. You were watching the base. Steve said that you were. And they’d already kidnapped you twice. But you still came.”

“Well,” she said, shooting for a breezy smile, “I had a box set on the line.”

“And tonight?” he asked. Bucky arched a brow as he shifted forward again, his gaze focused and intent upon her. “An entire compound full of superpowered people, and what do you do when you see someone lurking in the bushes? You confront them yourself.”

Darcy held up a finger at him. “Which is not an indication of steel. I didn’t think you were a legit archnemesis or anything. I thought you were a science spy, some pasty nerd I could make pee his pants in fear with a few waves of my tazer.”

Bucky lifted his beer to take a drink, only to set it back down, his mouth twitching in a smile. “You know you’re not saying anything to prove me wrong. Right? Seriously, doll. ‘Make him pee his pants in fear.’ Put some flowers in your hair and that tazer in your hand, and it fits.” He shrugged then and finally took his drink. “More than yours does anyway.”

She’d prepped a joke about flower power when his final comment processed. “Who do you think you are, if you’re not Hercules?”

Bucky’s gaze skittered away again, down toward the table, to the growing ring of condensation beneath his bottle. And Darcy knew, his choice for her not spontaneous or accidental, but a revelation, as much about her and how he saw her as about him and how Bucky viewed himself.

“You think you’re Hades,” she said, her voice again soft.

Bucky slumped back in his chair, but he didn’t shrug off her statement. Or evade her gaze, lifting his eyes to hers once more. “It fits,” he said. “Me kidnapping the gorgeous dame sitting in the sunlight… I think I qualify. Creeping out of the dark tonight like…” Bucky clenched his jaw and looked away, at nothing, at the past perhaps, or maybe at himself. He breathed in suddenly, a deep, shuddering inhale, and shoved a hand back through his hair. “I feel like I crawled out of hell sometimes.” He drifted into silence then as he shook his head, as his hand flopped back onto the table. Darcy scrambled once more for something to say. She knew the basics of what had happened to him, the bits she picked up at Avengers HQ and what she sought on her own in the Hydra files Natasha released. She knew enough and nothing at all. Before she could say anything though, Bucky looked back at her and flashed a tight smile. “I think you were right about current events. At least mine. Why don’t we talk about yours instead?”

Darcy nodded, understanding the circumvention, the conversation skimming too close to serious for a first date. She pursed her lips and considered where to begin when the waitress arrived with their food. Before the basket was even set down before her, Darcy reached for and opened the ketchup bottle to slather her fries. She shoved three into her mouth, hissing at the heat of them but not stopping in her pursuit of salted goodness. Bucky, on the other hand, eyed the waitress as she walked away, peered down at his food like it was a bomb about to explode, then, gaze flitting up to her, lifted one fry to take a tentative bite. He chewed and swallowed, at a saner pace than Darcy, who crammed another two into her mouth in the meantime. Bucky repeated the same test for his cheeseburger, perhaps for taste but maybe for poison. Whatever he searched for, he either found or didn’t find because he dug in then, picking up the burger and taking an enormous bite.

“Good, huh?”

Bucky grunted and took another bite before he even finished chewing the first. He said he hadn’t eaten since the day before. Darcy wondered now as she bit into hers if that was a lie or if what he had eaten was something small, if he’d been skating by on the bare minimum of sustenance due to either a lack of funds or a lack of consideration for his own needs. She figured the latter more than the former. If Bucky could get from the U.S. to Russia and back again, he could find money for food. The thought of him just not feeding himself properly made her want to wrap him in a blanket, sit him on her couch, and feed him cake and lasagna while they watched _Parks and Rec_ until he learned the concept of ‘treat yo self.’

Swallowing the burger, Bucky unfolded his napkin and wiped at his mouth. “You said you work for an astrophysicist.”

Darcy nodded. “Jane. I’m her assistant. I used to be her intern, but I get a salary now so they had to give me an official upgrade. Not that the job’s any different,” she added as she reached for her fries. “Mostly I haul equipment and get a lot of coffee. And I make sure Jane’s phone is charged in case of any space emergencies.”

Bucky blinked at that. “Space emergencies.”

“Yes, Scully. Space emergencies. Particularly of the alien kind. And not the little green men kind either,” she said as she waved a fry at him. “The Thor kind. Huge and pissed off and wanting to take it out on all of us puny humans. And not just aliens. Portals, too, these giant holes that open in the sky, but, like, _through_ space. Jane calls them bridges. And they are. They lead to different worlds. Worlds with all those pissed off aliens as well as weird ass immortal stone things that can cause catastrophic intergalactic destruction in varying rainbow shades.” Darcy bit into the fry only to wag the end at him again. “You best start believing in space emergencies, Mr. Barnes, before you’re in one.” 

Bucky stared at her a moment, his eyes wide. Then he laughed, this shocked, joyous sound that made her lower her fry back down to her plate.

“What?”

He shook his head at her, wonder in his voice when he spoke. “Everything about you just made much more sense. The bullets and the car chases and being kidnapped so much.” He paused and then added, a faint smile curving his lips, “Me.” 

“You?”

“Me.” He picked up a fry and munched on the end, peering at her as he did. “You say Hercules, I say Hades, but it’s still a shit ton of issues that not many would want to take on.”

Darcy nodded once in understanding. “But I am. Because of the space emergencies.”

Bucky smiled. “Yes. Because of the space emergencies.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t, he just looked at her instead, his gaze growing serious as the seconds passed. 

“What?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s just—” He stopped again and pulled in a deep breath, grit his teeth a moment as he struggled with whatever he wanted to say. Then, lifting his chin, he said, “I just… I think whoever it was that couldn’t stick it out before is a goddamn idiot.”

For the second time that evening, Bucky rendered her completely silent. Darcy stared at him, she tried hard not to gape, but she couldn’t help herself, seeing her as he saw her, as a Persephone, as someone worth waiting for all day just to have the chance to speak to. She ducked her head, her face warming with pleasure, the dopey grin from earlier returning. She saw him smile, too, from the corners of her eyes, and if her increasingly libidinous fantasies of the past few months hadn’t sealed the deal on a major league crush, then his smile did. 

“How about a toast?” she said as she reached for her beer.

“Okay.” He lifted his glass into the air, held it up before her. “What to?”

She pursed her lips a few moments, contemplating the various possibilities, from chocolate to beer to the dreaded space emergencies. Then, lifting her glass, she said, butterflies returning full force, “To fortuitous kidnappings. And shared questionability.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know people have a lot of opinions about the Hades & Persephone myth, ranging from it being awful as Hades rapes Persephone and tricks her into staying in the underworld, to the myth being an early feminist story about a young woman knowing exactly who Hades is and what he's all about and seizing the power he offers her. I reference it here because to show how differently Darcy views Bucky than how he views himself, not as a strict comment on what kind of relationship these two have with each other.


End file.
